Precious Metal Prices

Precious metals explained

A precious metal is a rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical element of high economic value, which is not radioactive (excluding natural polonium, radium, actinium and protactinium). Chemically, the precious metals are less reactive than most elements, have high lustre, are softer or more ductile, and have higher melting points than other metals. Historically, precious metals were important as currency, but are now regarded mainly as investment and industrial commodities. Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium each have an ISO 4217 currency code.
The best-known precious metals are gold and silver. While both have industrial uses, they are better known for their uses in art, jewellery and coinage. Other precious metals include the platinum group metals: ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum, of which platinum is the most widely traded. [1] During the last decades, the use of platinum, palladium and ruthenium as chemical catalysts has steadily risen.The demand for precious metals is driven not only by their practical use, but also by their role as investments and a store of value. Historically, precious metals have commanded much higher prices than common industrial metals. In January 2009, gold was about $840.00/troy ounce and silver was about $11.00/troy ounce, compared to copper at $0.11/troy ounce and nickel at $0.36/troy ounce.
In the early part of the 21st century, precious metal prices rose significantly and recycling precious metals became more and more attractive. Some companies have been doing recycling for many years, such as Sabin Metal Corporation (since 1945).

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Precious metal investment

Precious metal investment

Thursday, 6 February 2014

Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin. All anyone is talking about these days is bitcoin.
OK, so maybe not everyone is talking about bitcoin, but having had
its breakout year in 2013 (rising 6,000% in value) bitcoin, and by
extension the dozens of other cryptocurrencies which have sprung up in
the last 12 months, are now the topic of conversation around dinner
tables, in pubs and at the water cooler.
I've heard lots of people say they were going to buy bitcoin, while
the more knowledgeable were already planning on getting into litecoin,
dogecoin, vertcoin, sexcoin or whatever the cryptocurrency-of-the-week
was - but most people never took the plunge and actually bought some.
The problem is that actually getting on the cryptocurrency ladder is not that easy.
There are no bitcoin notes you can go to a bank and swap for your
pounds, euro or dollars, so how do you go about getting your virtual
hands on some?Bitcoin mining?

You can of course mine some bitcoin - a process we have covered in
detail here - but unless you are willing to spend thousands on a mining
rig, it'll take too long to mine enough bitcoin to do anything with it.
Most other cryptocurrencies are easier to mine, but if you really
don't want to get into mining, then you can swap cold hard cash for
bitcoins without too much hassle, and from there the cryptocurrency
world is your oyster.Bitcoin - the gateway drug
While it is possible to buy other cryptocurrencies like dogecoin or litecoin using real world currencies, for those of us in Europe, it is not that easy.

If you are looking to get into cryptocurrencies to make a quick
profit, then bitcoin probably isn't the one to start with, but in order
to explore the nether regions of cryptocurrency land, then the first
step has to be to buy some bitcoin.But bitcoin is too expensive

Don't worry that a single bitcoin currently costs over £500, you
don't have to buy a whole one, you can buy fractions of a bitcoin
through online exchanges to match the amount of real money you want to
invest.Using an exchange
There are two ways of buying bitcoin in the UK. One is straightforward, the other is not.

The not-so-straightforward method involves
registering with a cryptocurrency exchange - the most well-known of
which is probably Mt. Gox. While these exchanges operated for years
without needing to know your identity, they now do and the process is
both tedious (scanning, emailing and verifying identity documents) and
time consuming.
Only some of these exchanges are accessible to UK residents and your
bank will charge you a fee (up to £10) for wire transfers, meaning this
is really only an option for those getting seriously into the
cryptocurrency business
The straightforward way of getting on the bitcoin
ladder is by using one of a growing number of UK-based services which
allow you to pay using a bank transfer, Barclay's PingIt service or
Natwest's Instant payment service.

Max Keiser’s ‘MaxCoin’ to Debut as Newest Bitcoin Alternative

Another day, another altcoin — alternative to bitcoin — is launching.
That may or may not be an overstatement, but the cryptocurrency
community welcomes new altcoins for its mining, trading and speculative
opportunities.

MaxCoin is the first celebrity altcoin created by a
journalist/bitcoin advocate. Max Keiser is a cryptocurrency financial
journalist and host of RT’s Keiser Report. He is not shy about railing
against mainstream financial giants for their misdeeds, especially since
the financial crisis.
“If regulators think BTC is problematic, they are about to face
their worst nightmare; a currency based on dissent and empowerment #Maxcoin“– Tweeted Keiser Wednesday.
In that regard, it is fitting that Keiser get his own altcoin. After
all, he has raged against central bankers — and peer-to-peer
cryptocurrencies amount to the ultimate revenge against centralized
currencies.
There is much potential for MaxCoin, with some reports predicting a
$20 million market cap in its first month. But it has significant
competition. CoinMarketCap.com has 87 altcoins listed behind bitcoin.
However, Keiser has a big web following and MaxCoin could take off
like Dogecoin, which has soared in popularity in a matter of weeks.
Dogecoin is No. 6 with a $56 million market cap.MaxKeiserTV has 39,000 subscribers. His “personal” twitter account has over 91,000 followers and the Maxcoin “official” twitter account – @maxcoinproject – already has over 5,000 followers.

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

The Economic Crash

I always say that in every disaster lies an opportunity. What coming
this close to death has done for me is to remind me to enjoy my life.
To always do my best, and enjoy what I’m doing.

Back in 2002, when I began this journey into economics, when gold was
under $400 and silver was under $5, I knew I had an understanding of
what was happening in our society. And I knew I wanted to use that
understanding to help others. Seeing the crazy things governments and
central banks around the world were doing to their economies, I started
sharing what I had learned and encouraging people to do their own
research, decide what they should do, and take action. Now that gold is
over $1,600 and silver is over $30, I can honestly say that I feel both
rewarded and privileged to have played a positive part in helping to
protect many, many people from government stupidity.

But it’s not over yet. I believe the biggest economic crash in history
is still coming at us, and is just around the next bend in the road.
For years I have been getting ready for this economic disaster by
investing every spare dollar into gold and silver. And even though I’m
the guy that sees this economic crash ahead as the greatest opportunity
in history, and even though my gold and silver makes me feel safer and
sleep more soundly, I still worry.

From a monetary historian’s point of view there is no example, in all
of history, of the type of monetary malfeasance currently being
committed by governments and central banks turning out well. In fact,
it always leads to disaster… and this time they are doing it globally!

Historically, when a crisis wipes out a society’s middle class, there
is very often a great political change in that country, and it is always
for the worse. As goes the middle class, so goes the nation. The
middle class is approximately 60%-70% of a nation’s population. They
define a country with their vote and when they are scared, and
threatened with the possibility of a life in poverty, they will vote for
anybody. Usually they will vote for a strong, charismatic leader who
will play on their fears and promise them a way out of their
predicament. In fact, you can trace the rise of Napoleon, Hitler, and
Mao directly to currency crisis and a loss of the middle class.

Today, worldwide, we have the largest middle class in history. In the
U.S., and in many other countries around the world, the generations born
after WWII are spoiled… they have never gone hungry… they have never
known real economic strife. Most of them believe they deserve something
just because they are alive. This creates a dangerous situation. When
you take away a spoiled brat’s toys he throws a tantrum.

For the last 30 years governments and this spoiled middle class have
both been rewarded for taking on ever-increasing mountains of debt.
Like rats learning a maze, debt-dependence is a conditioned response,
brought on by a series of rewards and punishments. Artificially low
interest rates, which have been lower than the real rate of inflation,
have punished savers and rewarded borrowers.

Today’s unsustainable debt and currency crisis is entirely caused by
central banks meddling with the economy. To understand how central
banks artificially goose the economy we need to look at how currency is
created.

Whenever a central bank writes a check it creates a type of currency
they call “base money” (paper currency). The reason currency is created
every time a central bank writes a check is because the check was drawn
on an account that always has a zero balance. Basically they are
committing a fraud and counterfeiting. These brand new units of
currency inflate and dilute the currency supply when they enter
circulation causing the purchasing power of that currency to fall. With
each new unit of currency created, each existing unit of currency has
less purchasing power. The symptom of this inflation and dilution of
the currency supply is rising prices.

The recent crash of my Tesla Roadster and the global economic crash
that lies ahead of us have some similarities. Surviving the impact of a
collision is all about the dissipation of energy. By allowing the body
of my Tesla to absorb energy by crumpling and disintegrating it
cushions the impact, while the strong and rigid passenger compartment
maintained its integrity and allowed nothing to intrude, saving my life.

The biggest crash the world has ever seen is happening right now. The
financial vehicle I have chosen to carry me safely through it is gold
and silver.

Friday, 16 September 2011

Gold prices may reach $6,200 per ounce in a bull run which will “end all major bull markets,” Urs Gmuer, asset manager at Dolefin, a Swiss investment advice firm, told CNBC.

Gmuer’s prediction is based on analysis of the last major gold boom of the 1970s, during which gold prices rose from $35 per ounce to $850 per ounce. Gmuer said that in the current bull run, prices would be pushed upwards by a protracted period of global economic difficulty—potentially lasting years—during which investors would continue to search for so-called safe havens.

“Gold prices have risen over the last few years, as the macroeconomic picture has become worse. The deterioration of the fundamental situation has now gone even further.

“Purchases by investors of gold will be based on fears of systemic risk or banking crashes,” Gmuer said.

The investment manager said that as no "safe" currencies remain, cautious investors had no choice but to opt for precious metals.

“The ultimate currency, which has stood the test of time, which has no political support behind it, is gold. Nobody can print gold out of a machine or a PC.

Gmuer said the precious metal had entered a “super-cycle,” which he likened to the 1998-to-2000 boom in technology media and telecommunications.

He added, “This bull trend will end all the other major bull markets,” and singled out debt capital as an asset class for which demand and prices would decline.

However, Gmuer denied that high and rising gold prices could be indicative of a bubble. “If everybody is saying a particular asset is a bubble, that reflects the fact that most people have disposed of it,” he said.

Other calculations indicate that gold prices could peak at $3,500 or $4,000 per ounce. This is based on historical data regarding the long-term ratio of gold prices to the global money supply.

On Sept. 2, gold peaked at $1884.60.

Silver Set for 14-Fold Price Rise?

In addition, Gmuer said silver is set for an even greater upward run than gold, with the market due to correct a distortion in its pricing of silver in relation to gold.

Gold and silver currently price at a ratio of around 45:1. However, Gmuer said declining silver output over the last 60 years—as a result of inventory depletion and mine closures—meant silver supplies currently outnumber gold by a ratio of less than 10:1, thus indicating a market correction is due.

Once this occurs, Gmuer said silver prices would settle at 6.7 percent to 10 percent of gold prices. This implies that if gold reaches $6,200 per ounce, silver could peak at $620 per ounce.

As the implications of the global financial crisis are at long last beginning to filter through to the general public, the move to dump cash and other savings forms in favour of gold and silver - notably in the easily accessible and sellable coin form is now really beginning to gather momentum and is becoming a major driver of the precious metals markets.

We have long known that the rising, and rapidly expanding, middle classes in Asia have an almost inbuilt propensity to keep a significant proportion of their savings in gold while the less costly silver is now beginning to come into the equation. This has been emphasised recently with the news that the people's Bank of China has already had to virtually more than double its minting of its gold and silver Panda series of coins, despite the previous quota for this year itself already being double last year's with the populace buying gold and silver as a hedge against the onset of inflation there.

Now we hear that the Perth Mint in Australia has been selling record numbers of silver coins so far this year and although we don't have figures yet, gold coin sales there are also said to be at record numbers.

In the U.S., the U.S. Mint has been reporting record sales levels of its gold and silver coins, while we hear that, not surprisingly, the Greeks are flocking to purchase gold and silver in the midst of their financial crisis as their trust in banks has virtually disappeared.

Indeed it is this last factor which really should be in the mindset of anyone who is looking to wealth protection in the current economic crisis virtually wherever they may be located. The general consensus is that there will inevitably be a Greek default, if not next week, when parliament has to vote on the hugely unpopular austerity measures, but before long as even with a temporary EU and IMF bailout, the figures do not suggest that a default can ultimately be avoided.

French and German banks in particular are hugely directly vulnerable to a Greek default, but it is the indirect exposure that could be truly frightening for the whole of western society. As was the case with Lehmann Brothers the tentacles of a major bank collapse spread globally - and the Greek situation is far worse than Lehmann. The other knock-on effect of a Greek default is that those banks still left in business will be jacking interest rates to the other PIIGS economies sky high in fear that they will default as well - which of course in itself could drive them to default as there is then no way they could service their debts. In the dog-eat-dog world of current finance it is difficult to see sufficient co-operation between the banks to avert this - no bank will trust another not to go down so interbank lending and co-operation will die almost overnight.

Just as the European banking sector proved hugely vulnerable to the U.S. sub prime crisis, so in this case would the U.S. banks be to a Eurozone financial crisis of even bigger proportions. The dominoes that could fall following a Greek default include a number of countries, lots of smaller banks, some major ones. The carnage could be horrendous virtually wiping out many peoples' savings across the whole of the Western world as banks collapse, housing values plummet , stock markets crumble etc.: The Great Depression 2.- but even worse this time.

We are already seeing the impact in Greece in particular. The populace is already out on the streets vigorously protesting the current austerity measures - and the new proposals on which any kind of bailout depends are even more stringent! This is a pattern we may see across the whole of Europe - and it could well filter through to the U.S. too. The U.K.'s unions are already promising the nearest thing yet to another general strike with proposed co-ordinated action this summer. As in the so-called Arab Spring the natural outcome is blood on the streets as governments of whatever persuasion fight to maintain control.

And the U.S. public has still not really come to grips with its own dire financial situation. Quite apart from the enormous federal deficit, States like California and Illinois are themselves virtually bankrupt - and they have far bigger economies than Greece!

It could even be the death of Capitalism. Ironically nations like Russia and China may be far more protected from this kind of fallout than the rest of Europe and North America. The perception of pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake and the greed of the financial elite could create a groundswell of public opinion and action beyond control. Bankers, hedge fund managers, stockbrokers, the perceived financial class could be targeted individually - it may be safer for them to stay at home barricading themselves in their mansions!

Now this painting of a doomsday scenario is a warning to investors and, perhaps, politicians everywhere. Hopefully it won't happen - at least not to the extent suggested above - but one can't help but think it is probably as well to keep a proportion of one's savings in precious metals as the Greek public is doing, as the Chinese are doing, as the Indians are doing, as the Arab world is doing, as the Australians seem to be beginning to do as are the Germans and Austrians and some Americans. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra "It ain't over ‘til it's over" - and it certainly ain't over yet.

Saturday, 16 April 2011

23 May 2007
NewScientist.com news service David Cohen
"I get excited every time I see a street cleaner," says Hazel Prichard. It's what they collect in their sacks that gets her juices flowing, because the grime and litter they sweep up off the streets is laced with traces of platinum, one of the world's rarest and most expensive metals. The catalytic converters that keep exhaust pollutants from cars, trucks and buses down to an acceptable level all use platinum, and over the years it is slowly but steadily lost through these vehicles' exhaust pipes. Prichard, a geologist at the University of Cardiff in the UK, reckons that tonnes of the stuff is being sprayed out onto the world's streets and highways every year, and she is hunting for places where it is concentrated enough to be worth recovering. One of her prime targets is the waste containers in road-sweeping machines. This could prove lucrative, but Prichard is motivated by something far more significant than the chance of a quick buck. Platinum is a vital component not only of catalytic converters but also of fuel cells - and supplies are running out. It has been estimated that if all the 500 million vehicles in use today were re-equipped with fuel cells, operating losses would mean that all the world's sources of platinum would be exhausted within 15 years. Unlike with oil or diamonds, there is no synthetic alternative: platinum is a chemical element, and once we have used it all there is no way on earth of getting any more. What price then pollution-free cities?
It's not just the world's platinum that is being used up at an alarming rate. The same goes for many other rare metals such as indium, which is being consumed in unprecedented quantities for making LCDs for flat-screen TVs, and the tantalum needed to make compact electronic devices like cellphones. How long will global reserves of uranium last in a new nuclear age? Even reserves of such commonplace elements as zinc, copper, nickel and the phosphorus used in fertiliser will run out in the not-too-distant future. So just what proportion of these materials have we used up so far, and how much is there left to go round?
Perhaps surprisingly, given how much we rely on these elements, we can't be sure. For a start, the annual global consumption of most precious metals is not known with any certainty. Estimating the extractable reserves of many metals is also difficult. For rare metals such as indium and gallium, these figures are kept a closely guarded secret by mining companies. Governments and academics are only just starting to realise that there could be a problem looming, so studies of the issue are few and far between.
Armin Reller, a materials chemist at the University of Augsburg in Germany, and his colleagues are among the few groups who have been investigating the problem. He estimates that we have, at best, 10 years before we run out of indium. Its impending scarcity could already be reflected in its price: in January 2003 the metal sold for around $60 per kilogram; by August 2006 the price had shot up to over $1000 per kilogram.
Uncertainties like this pose far-reaching questions. In particular, they call into doubt dreams that the planet might one day provide all its citizens with the sort of lifestyle now enjoyed in the west. A handful of geologists around the world have calculated the costs of new technologies in terms of the materials they use and the implications of their spreading to the developing world. All agree that the planet's booming population and rising standards of living are set to put unprecedented demands on the materials that only Earth itself can provide. Limitations on how much of these materials is available could even mean that some technologies are not worth pursuing long term.
Take the metal gallium, which along with indium is used to make indium gallium arsenide. This is the semiconducting material at the heart of a new generation of solar cells that promise to be up to twice as efficient as conventional designs. Reserves of both metals are disputed, but in a recent report René Kleijn, a chemist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, concludes that current reserves "would not allow a substantial contribution of these cells" to the future supply of solar electricity. He estimates gallium and indium will probably contribute to less than 1 per cent of all future solar cells - a limitation imposed purely by a lack of raw material.
To get a feel for the scale of the problem, we have turned to data from the US Geological Survey's annual reports and UN statistics on global population. This has allowed us to estimate the effect that increases in living standards will have on the time it will take for key minerals to run out (see Graphs). How many years, for instance, would these minerals last if every human on the planet were to consume them at just half the rate of an average US resident today?
The calculations are crude - they don't take into account any increase in demand due to new technologies, and also assume that current production equals consumption. Yet even based on these assumptions, they point to some alarming conclusions. Without more recycling, antimony, which is used to make flame retardant materials, will run out in 15 years, silver in 10 and indium in under five. In a more sophisticated analysis, Reller has included the effects of new technologies, and projects how many years we have left for some key metals. He estimates that zinc could be used up by 2037, both indium and hafnium - which is increasingly important in computer chips - could be gone by 2017, and terbium - used to make the green phosphors in fluorescent light bulbs - could run out before 2012. It all puts our present rate of consumption into frightening perspective (see Diagram).
Our hunger for metals and minerals may not grow indefinitely, however. When Tom Graedel and colleagues at Yale University looked at figures for the consumption of iron - one of our planet's most plentiful metals - they found that per capita consumption in the US levelled off around 1980. "This suggests there might be only so many iron bridges, buildings and cars a member of a technologically advanced society needs," Graedel says. He is now studying whether this plateau is a universal phenomenon, in which case it might be possible to predict the future iron requirements of developing nations. Whether consumption of other metals is also set to plateau seems more questionable. Demand for copper, the only other metal Graedel has studied, shows no sign of levelling off, and based on 2006 figures for per capita consumption he calculates that by 2100 global demand for copper will outstrip the amount extractable from the ground.
So what can be done? Reller is unequivocal: "We need to minimise waste, find substitutes where possible, and recycle the rest." Prichard, working with Lynne Macaskie at the University of Birmingham in the UK, has found that platinum makes up as much as 1.5 parts per million of roadside dust. They are now seeking out the largest of these urban platinum deposits, and Macaskie is developing a bacterial process that will efficiently extract the platinum from the dust.
Other metals could be obtained in equally unorthodox places. Cities are huge stores of metals that could be repurposed, Kleijn points out. Replacing copper water pipes with plastic, say, would free up large quantities of copper for other uses. Tailings from worked-out mines contain small amounts of minerals that may become economic to extract. Some metals could be taken from seawater. "It's all a matter of energy cost," he says. "You could go to the moon to mine precious materials. The question is: could you afford it?"
These may sound like drastic solutions, but as Graedel points out in a paper published last year (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 1209), "Virgin stocks of several metals appear inadequate to sustain the modern 'developed world' quality of life for all of Earth's people under contemporary technology." And when resources run short, conflict is often not far behind. It is widely acknowledged that one of the key motives for civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1998 and 2002 was the riches to be had from the country's mineral resources, including tantalum mines - the biggest in Africa. The war coincided with a surge in the price of the metal caused by the increasing popularity of mobile phones (New Scientist, 7 April 2001, p 46).
Similar tensions over supplies of other rare metals are not hard to imagine. The Chinese government is supplementing its natural deposits of rare metals by investing in mineral mines in Africa and buying up high-tech scrap to extract metals that are key to its developing industries. The US now imports over 90 per cent of its so-called "rare earth" metals from China, according to the US Geological Survey. If China decided to cut off the supply, that would create a big risk of conflict, says Reller.
Reller and Graedel say urgent action is required. Firstly, we need accurate estimates of global reserves and precise figures for consumption. Then we need to set up an accelerated programme to recycle, reuse and, where possible, replace rare elements with more abundant ones. Without all this, any dream of a more equitable future for humanity will come to nothing.
Governments seem, at last, to be taking the issue seriously, and next month an OECD working group will be convened to come up with some of the answers. If that goes to plan, we will soon at least have a clearer idea of the problem. Whether any solution to looming global shortages can then be found remains to be seen.